So
much heartfelt joy and painabiding
in one frame.Memories
thrown out of syncby
others' states of current apathy.A
sense of some impending awful doom.Camera
into zoom.The
future calls.Tackling
too many setsof
high set, concrete walls.

Sorrow
is the easy part of grief.They
think that they can hidethe
rest between their high-countlinen
sheets. As if she'd neverlived
to give them life. As ifher
passing wouldn't dareascribe
to them anothervery
painful right of passage.

He
used to be my brother.Here
inside my heart, I soughtto
see the other that I used to know.Who
was it that had really changed...?It
was not only I. I spied a crazykind
of light, just there, behind thedarkness
gazing through his eyes.A
fanatic kind of fear that burned.I
looked at him. He glancedand
turned away. As if he hadbecome
some kind of prey.Running
all too quickly, far away.

And
there, another face I dearly loved.There
was a time he used to be my son.Connect
the dots and find another knot.Cancer
swarming. Mother's warnings.Trying
to reach past insanity.Graven
deep in images of black andwhite
and gray. Trying to consoleconditions,
once inflamed in timestoo
far away to make a difference.Yet
there the difference stood.Stronger
than a concrete wall.And
now the difference stays.Refusing
still to follow her intothe
safe reclusive vault that lieswithin
her grave.

Looking
once again into the eyesof
those who claim to be alive.Seeing
her insanity live on.Knowing
that my father played a part.No
matter any charm they useto
try to cover over the abuse.It
runs that way, in families.Every
generation claimingto
have changed it all.Lost
within the empty hallsof
love that might have been.

I'd
always tried to be a friend to them.But
now that she has finally foundher
end, it seems they never reallyfelt
or thought that way of me.And
then reality is juxtaposed again.Another
lash. Too many for a whip.Cutting
deeper than the childish snipsof
ugly memories abiding in the flesh.Reaching
up and out again in timeand
space - right here, right now.

But
see - the interference wasn't hers.She's
gone more surely than the blurof
pain that lives within them. I knowshe
holds the angels hands these days.She
was no saint. Her martyrdomwas
always thought inconsequential.A
sickness that she might have lived beyond.If
only she had grown more male, like them.I
stare into the pond. The image grows.She
never claimed to be a saint, you know.

Just
all too human, after all.Feeling
all the sorrow of their fallsinto
beliefs that brought them no morethan
those things they named their gross reality.Feeling
so much more than theyhad
ever yet allowed themselves to feel -inside.
Knowing too, that theywould
never listen and believethe
lessons time and fate had taught her.The
wisdom that at last had brought herfar
beyond the need to sink downon
her aching knees again.

No
God. No Christ. No crucifixion.No
manmade image formed of cruelty.She
rests her head upon her mother's knee.The
image faint, but oh, I cannot helpbut
feel the harmony she found.Becoming
more attuned.Her
ever-life abounding with the joyshe
always knew that it wasmeant
to be. Her heart alive.Her
soul still flying free...